But Anthony, known in the neighborhood as Two Time, didn't want to turn down the money. He told the man to follow them to the Cleaborn Homes housing development, to a seven-unit, rundown, concrete-and-brick apartment structure three buildings away from the one in which Jessie's family lived.

Jessie and Anthony went inside as Halle waited in the courtyard. Anthony handed Jessie a .32-caliber handgun. If Halle was an undercover cop, he told Jessie, he'd take a rap for drugs, not for the gun.

I don't want both charges, Anthony told him.

Anthony walked outside. Jessie waited in the apartment.

It should have been a quick transaction. But it was taking too long.

Jessie stepped into the courtyard with the gun. He could hear the shouting as he walked around the corner of the building. This is fake dope! Halle was yelling at Anthony, and then he saw Jessie coming toward them.

You've got something to do with this, Halle said to Jessie.

I didn't serve you Jessie responded.

Angry, Halle said: I've got something for you. He reached into his pocket.

Jessie grabbed the gun he'd been given and fired. Halle, struck in the head, dropped to the dirt and patchy grass of the housing project.

* * *

At the parole review hearing, Yusuf Hakeem turned to Jessie's family, there to plead for his early release. Priscilla Shaw, his mother, came, as did his father, Jessie Dotson Sr., and his sister, Nicole Dotson.

Jessie received an 18-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in 1994. He'd served more than 13 years, his entire 20s, and now had an opportunity to be released on parole more than four years early.

"What we normally try to do is afford the mother the first opportunity to address the board, so Ms. Shaw, I'd like to ask you if you have anything that should be addressed," Yusuf asked Priscilla.

"I would like to ask that you please allow my son a chance to come home and start his life," Priscilla responded. "Meet his son that he's never seen. I know it may seem like this because I'm his mother, but I really feel like he made a mistake and he's learned from it. Please give him a chance to come home and be with his family."

"Thank you, ma'am," Yusuf said. "The father, Mr. Jessie Dotson?"

"I feel just like she does ..." Jessie Sr. said. "When he comes out, he'll be working with me. He'll be at work every day, and if he can keep his mind occupied, I think he'll be all right."

"Then Nicole?"

"I just want my brother to come home and be a part of this family," Nicole said. "We miss him so much. I feel like, just from talking to him when I do, I feel like he's truly become a better man for being here."

"Mr. Dotson," Yusuf continued, "we're going to afford you the opportunity at this time to share with us why you think you should be given the opportunity for parole at this time."

"I know what I did in the past. I know it was wrong, you know?" Jessie said. "This ain't how I want to spend my life, in detention. This is not the life I want for me.

"I have learned, you know, from the mistakes I made by being in here. I hate what I did to be in here, but I feel like by being in here, I have become a better person. Back then, I didn't listen to nobody. Didn't care about how other people felt. None of that. But now, you know, I take all that into consideration -- other people's feelings; I listen to people more."

Jessie paused.

"I'm sorry for what I did."

The state Board of Probation and Parole voted to approve Jessie's early release, returning him to Memphis under state supervision in August 2007.

* * *

Jessie's younger brother, Cecil, didn't attend the final parole hearing. In fact, Cecil never visited Jessie in prison, and when the murderer returned to Memphis after nearly 14 years, he found a different sibling in Cecil. His kid brother was now a 30-year-old family man whose devotion was visible.

On his chest, one tattoo read "1 Baby Cierra," above "3-2-95," his first daughter's date of birth. On his left leg, Cecil had another tattoo of a flower next to the name "Priscilla," for his mother.

He had six children now and a live-in girlfriend, the mother of four of them. From his earnings as an apartment maintenance man, Cecil rented a small house at 722 Lester. Every weekend, all of his children would pile into the house and play.

He was a different person than the 17-year-old that Jessie knew in the mid-'90s. That Cecil was a lot like him, a high school dropout who settled scores with violence. But as teenagers, Jessie proved to be a better shot than Cecil, and that fact sent their young lives in two different directions.

It was 1994, not long after Jessie was arrested for murder, and 16-year-old Lawanda Abston was pregnant with Cecil's baby. Lawanda lived with her aunt a few doors down from Cecil at the Cleaborn housing project. Every night, against her aunt's orders, Lawanda would sneak out and spend the night at Cecil's.

Cierra, a little girl, was born March 2, 1995. For Yolanda Abston, Lawanda's aunt, her niece sneaking off in the middle of the night was bad enough; now, with Cierra, she wouldn't tolerate Lawanda running to Cecil's in the dark, baby in arms.

"She still had to abide by my rules," Yolanda said of Lawanda.

When Yolanda saw her niece near Cecil, she punished her. If she caught her on the phone with him, she pulled out the plug.

"She just didn't like him," Lawanda remembered.

The tension between Yolanda and Cecil culminated on Aug. 24, 1995, when Yolanda discovered Lawanda talking on the phone with Cecil once again.

Hang up the phone, Yolanda demanded.

Lawanda complied. But a few seconds later, the phone rang. Yolanda grabbed it, and Cecil was on the other end, cursing and threatening. Yolanda hung up and a few minutes later, Cecil was outside the apartment, yelling and cursing more. Yolanda yelled back, indignant and angry.

Just then, 16-year-old Antonio Abston, Yolanda's son, opened the front door, gun in hand, and began firing at Cecil.

He ran, escaping unwounded. Back home, Cecil grabbed his own gun, a black 7mm pistol with a brown handle that could discharge both .32- and .380-caliber bullets. Cecil loaded .32s, the same type of ammunition Jessie fired in this housing project a year earlier.

Five minutes after Antonio had fired on him, Cecil returned. Yolanda and Antonio were still on the stoop in front of the apartment.

The first bullet hit the apartment with a clatter. Yolanda immediately grabbed her son and pushed him inside. The bullets continued, each missing. Yolanda rushed in, swung the wooden door back and pushed it closed with her right hand. As she did, a bullet came through the door and grazed one of her fingers. Blood spilled out.

The shots continued, and Antonio ran out the back door. Seeing him, Cecil chased Antonio into the Foote housing project, where Cecil lost him.

The 17-year-old Cecil was arrested and charged with attempted murder. He pleaded guilty and served two years of his four-year sentence.

By 19, the age Jessie was when he was first incarcerated, Cecil was free and began to rebuild a life in Memphis.

* * *

Jessie and Cecil often fought as teenagers, and when the brothers recently reunited as adults, Jessie, now 33, and Cecil, now 30, the old ways remained.

On Jan. 29, several months after being paroled, Jessie came to Cecil's house on Lester. During the visit, he grabbed Cecil's leather jacket and began to walk out. As Cecil tried to stop him, Jessie drew a gun.

Cierra and the other children in the house ran toward the bedrooms. I'm gonna kill you, Cierra heard Jessie say. Jessie left and drove away.

One month later, on Feb. 28, Cecil's oldest, Cierra, was sick at school. She had a panic attack, and Cecil picked her up, took her to the hospital, then to Lawanda's apartment in South Memphis. Every weekend, Cierra would come to the Lester Street house to be with her brothers and sister. But that weekend, because she wasn't feeling well, she stayed at her mother's.

The next evening, Cecil was at home wearing a red, white and blue shirt with jogging pants. Marissa, his 27-year-old girlfriend, was at home as well when two friends, 33-year-old Hollis Seals and 22-year-old Shindri Roberson, came to visit.

Cecil's five younger children -- Cecil Jr., Cedric, CeMario, Cecil II and Caniyah, ranging in age from 9 to 4 months -- were in the bedrooms.

In the early hours of March 2, all four adults and two of the children were slaughtered with bullets and knives. Three children, though critically wounded, survived the attack.

Cecil died on his eldest daughter's birthday, exactly 13 years after the date tattooed on his chest.

* * *

After police found the bodies on March 3, Lawanda called Jessie. She had tried to reach Cecil all day on Cierra's birthday. He wasn't answering his phone.

This report is based on court and police records, files from the Shelby County District Attorney General's Office, recordings and documents from the state Board of Probation and Parole, autopsy files and various interviews. Quotes people recalled from memory are italicized.